Review: Hancock

Dear Will Smith: You’re a naturally likable guy. That’s why you’re one of the biggest movie stars in the world — because people like you. So why in the world would you want to appear in a movie in which you’re so not likable — especially in a disaster like HANCOCK?

Review: Superman Returns

There’s a scene early on in Superman Returns which beautifully establishes director Bryan Singer’s priorities for his latest superhero epic: the Kryptonian rocket which Superman has apparently been using during his mysterious time off Earth crashes in a cornfield near his mother’s farm in Kansas. We don’t see the ship land, however, not [...]

Review: Fantastic Four

Calling the 1961 comic debut of the Fantastic Four groundbreaking would no doubt elicit a cry of “It’s clobberin’ time!” from super-hero historians and rabid comic fans worldwide. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s vision of a super-powered team filtered through the dynamic of an otherwise normal “family” not only broke new ground, it forged a [...]

Review: Batman Begins

One thought kept bouncing through my head over and over as I watched Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan’s magnificent reconceptualizaion of the Batman mythos:

“They get it.”

Director Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) and co-screenwriter David Goyer understand that audiences don’t want to see the primary-color pap of Joel Schumacher’s last two Batman travesties. We don’t want superhero movies [...]